The Stockroom
by Donnistar
Summary: A holding pen for drabbles, one-shots and songfics that can't stand on their own but that I liked too much to let rot on my hard drive. Lots of different genres and continuities. Probably nothing too weird. Newest: "Between," "Away," and "Replace." (Dib/Gretchen and ZADF)
1. Fixing GIR

_I've been working (very) slowly on a big story for you all, but because that's coming so unpredictably, I thought it might be nice to treat you to some one-shots and drabbles? I have quite a store on my hard drive. These won't follow any particular theme or continuity or pairing – they're mostly all meant to stand alone. _

_Also expect the occasional shipping drabble, just because I'll probably never write a big romantic story and these drabbles are the only place I can get my ship on. I'll try and label shippy one-shots accordingly. This first one is not._

* * *

Zim's foot was dragging the ground as he walked into the house. His heel squeaked against the tiling, accompanied by a low growl deep in his throat. In a few hours his leg would be straightened out and the dull ache in it would subside, but that did little to calm his foul mood.

He didn't need to get hurt at all. That transformer at the power plant he'd been trying to convert hadn't needed to explode and toss him backwards. And it wouldn't have, if not for –

"Reeeaaah!" came the familiar screeching as GIR dashed into the living room from the yard. His arms were thrown out to the side and he pretend-zoomed around Zim as he played his own bizarre version of the airplane game.

Zim's eyes narrowed at GIR. It had been _his_ defective little robot who'd rammed a chopstick into that panel. All GIR's fault. He could have been controlling the east-side of the city's power grid by now.

Hunching his shoulders, Zim stomped deeper into the house. He clambered up into the trash-can lift, still fuming, antenna going flat on his head when GIR crawled up in after him.

"We's squished," GIR said cheerfully, butting his head into Zim's chest as the lift descended deeper into the base.

Zim inched himself closer to the wall of the narrow lift. The idea of being so close to the little bucket of screwed-up bolts nearly made Zim sick. Then again, maybe it was GIR's awful smell. Always hard to tell.

"Doop de doop," sang GIR softly, tapping his foot against the ground as the lift went lower still. Zim could feel the vibrations as he spoke against his stomach and every muscle in his body tensed at the contact.

Finally the door slid open. Computer processing floor. Fresh air flooded the lift and Zim used the newfound space to knock GIR roughly out onto the ground.

"Get AWAY from me!" he snapped.

GIR ignored him. He tottered over to an open space on the floor and sat down, rocking from side to side, his head sporadically snapping to the side at nothing as if he was seeing things. Once or twice he mumbled a random word at full-volume, something like "bacon," or "cellar door."

Zim stared after him.

"You're broken, GIR," Zim said, eyeing the little robot, fully aware that he was functionally talking to himself. After all, GIR was currently busy trying to eat one of his own feet.

Zim stalked over to him. He glanced over the silvery chassis and healthy glowing eyes. GIR's hardware was perfectly fine – better than average, Zim reckoned – it was his insides that were rotten from the inside out. Festering since day one and only getting worse on this stupid, pandering planet.

All those little software patches, those chip updates and driver repairs had been futile. He was still ruined. His only companion, his only assistant on this lonely, putrid rock was still crippled in the head, despite all Zim's efforts to fix him.

Zim felt the muscles in his face starting to twitch, the teeth in his jaw aching as he ground them together. His knuckles shown white as he stared at GIR, who noticed his master no more than he noticed the molecules in the air. GIR's metal head clanged annoyingly as he chomped down on the end of his leg, giggling as sparks flew from his mouth.

Had it really taken him this long to figure it out? Zim bit into his bottom lip as he thought. Had this really never occurred to him?

So many ruined plans. So many near-deaths. So many _actual_ deaths. Zim's back still ached in the right weather from that time GIR had tried to see if he could fit one of his rubber piggies into the Voot Cruiser's hyperspace release valve. All this failure at the hands of an insane little robot.

Zim's hands had started shaking without his notice. Quickly, too fast for GIR to react, Zim stomped forward and seized him by his shoulders. He heaved GIR up onto his back, feeling him go limp and heavy like a doll. Likely he was expected a piggy-back ride or something equally stupid.

"Where we goin'?"

"You're going to be fixed, GIR. For the last time."

He'd wasted so many years. It had taken him so long to put the pieces together – he, Zim, master of all technology, a super genius himself – and now, now things were going to be different.

Once a computer's far enough gone, you don't repair it. You wipe it completely.

GIR wriggled on Zim's shoulder as he walked deeper into the base. He felt the tiny clawed hand running circles around his Pak, GIR's little voice humming a weird tune into his ear. Zim gritted his teeth and walked faster.

He carried GIR into one of the server rooms, searching for an appropriate spot to plug him in. The house was flexible and dynamic and really could fulfill just about any need Zim had at any time – and right now he needed to reconfigure his SIR.

"Computer, prepare a SIR containment frame," Zim commanded. With a whirring of metallic clicks and flashes of pink steel, a rack-like table popped into existence right in front of him. It even had a few indentations for GIR's giant head and floating legs.

Zim slammed the little robot onto the rack, keeping one hand planted on his chest to hold him still until the wires could attach. The machine whirred to life, chords snaking out of it like vines that wrapped around GIR's tiny frame.

"It feels creepy," GIR said softly. He latched a hand around Zim's wrist. Zim shook it off.

The cables fed into GIR's head, into the little door in his chest, wrapping around his limbs to hold him down. His bright eyes darted worriedly back and forth beneath the nest of cables. A squeaking, humming whimper leaked out of his zippered mouth.

Zim huffed quietly at the sound. Robots weren't supposed to feel fear.

He calibrated the containment frame, flipping a few switches and clicking frantically at the computer screen. This program wasn't terribly different from the machines that Control Brains used to deactivate Irken Paks. It would just be a simple wipe, and afterward he could re-build GIR's personality from scratch.

He wouldn't even need to call him GIR anymore.

Zim pounded the "enter" button and grinned as sparks erupted from the ends of the cables, code and energy shooting through them. The crackling of electricity sounded through the room, flashes of light illuminating the dusty corners, and Zim and his robot at the center of it all.

GIR went perfectly still in the containment frame. The cables tightened around him, holding his arms and legs tightly, his eyes wide and vacant for an instant or two.

And then he screamed.

GIR shrieked. His voice rang throughout the base, high-pitched and pained, piercing through Zim's brain like a needle. GIR's eyes flashed a through a dozen colors, his arms yanked against wires, but mostly he screamed.

Clamminess rose up on Zim's skin at the sound, rattling some sickness to the surface. He tried to watch the progress bar as it crawled across the computer screen, wringing his hands, but his gaze kept flicking over to the screaming robot.

He kept crying out. GIR's childish little voice roaring in fear was freakish and obscene. It sounded like madness, like agony down to the bone, a noise that made Zim feel like his mind was turning inside out.

"This needs to be done, GIR! It will be over soon and then you'll be better. So much better," Zim said, hands pressed to the sides of his head, but his voice was drowned out the instant the words left his mouth. He curled into himself, trying to escape the sound as it soaked down into his body.

The shrieking didn't stop.

There was nothing wrong with fixing something broken, right? There couldn't be. That's all he was doing. Correcting something that should have been corrected so long ago. How could doing this be the wrong thing to do?

Zim had read somewhere once that being deactivated felt like having your brains scraped right out of your skull. That was what needed to be done to GIR, didn't it? For the good of the mission?

(The screaming went on. Zim whined silently and wide-eyed.)

None of GIR would be left. Not a single byte of mission-ruining, taco-eating, hug-given data. The robot that came out of this machine would be sterile. Default. Just like every other SIR unit that had ever been distributed.

The robot who GIR was supposed to be would be cold.

Zim shuttered, teeth grinding in his skull, arms wrapped protectively around his body. One eye winced open, staring at the progress screen, forcing himself to avoid GIR's mad, wide-eyed gaze. The bright red "CANCEL" button hovered just below.

Zim uncurled himself and smashed one fist down on the plastic circle.

Immediately the machine shuddered to a halt. Its humming quieted, the sparks dimmed, and the coils wrapped tightly around GIR's little body loosened like dead snakes. Zim grabbed handfuls of them, yanking them out of GIR's head, freeing his limp body from the nest of wires.

GIR wasn't moving. He'd stopped screaming only to have his eyes dim to grey. Zim seized his shoulders and dragged him out of the containment frame, dropping to the floor with the little robot on his lap.

"GIR, wake up!" Zim roared into his face as he shook GIR, hard, until his antenna rattled back and forth. He stayed still. "GIR! I didn't give you permission to abandon m- this mission!"

Zim waited. In the soft buzzing of the computer room, the weird red light and the sharp tang of metal, he waited. GIR's body grew heavy in his arms as he studied every inch of the little chassis for a sign of light or movement.

Minutes or hours.

Then, finally, a spark.

GIR's eyes flickered red for an instant. Zim yelped in surprise, dropping his robot into his lap, feeling the metal beginning to warm as GIR woke up. He spasmed, shook, passed through a few more eye colors. His legs kicked wildly. Zim growled in annoyance and held GIR tightly against his chest to keep him still.

"Aw, hugs!" GIR squeaked, returning the embrace.

"No, GIR! No hugs. That wasn't a hug."

Dumping GIR onto the floor, Zim got to his feet. He brushed himself off fussily, avoiding GIR's dippy gaze, wondering if GIR had any memory of –

Of course not. He couldn't. And what would it matter if he did?

"Come on, GIR. I've done all I need to do down here," he said, turning away, content that GIR was functionally normal. As normal as he could possibly be, of course. As normal as Zim wanted him.

"Can we watch T.V. now?"

"Ugh, that human drivel…" Zim began, then stopped, cringing as GIR bopped up to his side as he waited for the lift. The cyan eyes looked hopefully up. No one ever looked up at him other than GIR.

The lift dinged as it arrived at their floor, but GIR continued to stare at him.

"Sure. We'll watch whatever you want," Zim said.


	2. The Game (mild KeefGaz)

_Forgot to mention: If anyone wants to suggest a prompt or something you'd like to see me take a whack at, that is MORE than okay. Most of these are just kind of random and it's nice to have a focus to go off of every once and a while, yeah? Anyway, this is an old one. _

* * *

No one will pay you play video games. But Gaz took that problem-solving and hand-eye-coordination, that determination and quick-thinking into medical school with her, and came out with a specialty in diagnostics and a concentration in surgery.

Hospitals would pay any amount of money to have the daughter of THE Professor Membrane on their staff. Not that it mattered – she was good at what she did. Surgery was fun, her tiny machine-exact hands tying sutures, slicing skin, diving into the sea of viscera and fluid while the sissy-ass techs looked away. Don't lose your lunch, kid, someone's got to sterilize this.

They left the OR breathing and she got the same exhale-thrill of a well-done boss battle. No, not glad to have saved a life, really. Just glad to have grinded through. That was what made her so good – Gaz Membrane did not choke up because her patient was a mother of four, a priest, a pedophile – they were all equally guilty of being part of Dib's so precious mankind.

Gaz got all the motivation she needed from herself. They just had to put a body in front of her. Needle, Gameslave, controller, syringe, just a different name for a different game.

Diagnostics was her baby, though. As much as Gaz could have any such feeling.

Today she was solving logic puzzles. Hey, remember that useless key you found three levels ago? Here's where it comes in handy. Her shift at the hospital was ten minutes in when one of the interns brought her a sheaf of papers held together with a plastic and metal clip.

"This patient's been here for four days and no one can figure out what's wrong with her. The administration wants you to take a look at her history," he said, shoulders sagging, eyes unfocused, a coffee stain on the hip of his scrubs. The same worn-out desperation that she saw on Dib some days. More and more nowadays – he was working himself to death at the Swollen Eyeball Headquarters – but it wasn't a look that suited this scrawny kid just out of undergrad.

They worked them too hard, she thought.

"Whatever. Take a break, kid. You look like a zombie," she told him, taking the clipboard, waving him away as he sighed thankfully at her. No one would question an instruction from Gaz Membrane, M.D., so if she told him to take a nap, that's what he was sure to do.

Gaz glanced over the sheet, ignoring the nurses and gurneys that whizzed annoyingly around her. Pages from medical journals came shooting to the forefront of her brain as she read. She combined overlapping articles in her head, chapters from ancient textbooks, shifting around symptoms and causes and effects and pathogens like Tetris blocks.

Here they are: weight loss, fevers, open sores, patient has multiple infections in multiple body systems, low white count.

She narrowed her eyes down at the papers, snapping them back and forth like a flipbook. She snarled at an intern that came too close.

This wasn't good.

One of the nurses hissed at her at first when she wanted more blood tests, this kind this time, a few more fluid samples and a biopsy if they could manage it. Except that Gaz didn't request things. She demanded them, she expected a turnover, no matter the cost to the hospital or the stress on the insurance company.

Gaz had to know. This puzzle had to be solved. No cheat-codes here.

She waited for the results. Get them faster, you lab monkeys. By now Keef was sitting at home alone, staring at a cooling carton of General Tso's chicken. He'd be alright. He'd call Dib or Zim and they'd have a boy's evening.

Gaz looked over the paperwork, did math in her head, checked up a few things on PubMed on her laptop in one of the workrooms. She tried a thousand things to make the numbers come out right. Seconds ticked by on the cheapy Made-In-China clock on the matte white walls. Seconds that were meaningless to her. She had billions of them left.

But this woman, who she knew only by blood-cell counts and medical histories? Not so much.

Gaz turned the collar up on her labcoat as she walked into the woman's room hospital to give her the bad news.

She was thin. Much thinner than Gaz had imagined as she'd read over the files. She was a bundle of sticks wrapped in skin, her dry lips patchworked by scabs, the Salvation Army blanket draped over her pointed knees in the bed like tents. The woman looked up at Gaz with deep-set eyes that didn't shine, her eyebrows perked at the sight of a doctor who might, finally, have an answer.

Gaz's answer was worse than none at all.

"It's terminal," she told her.

"Isn't there anything you can do?" the woman asked, begged, twisting the paper-towel blanket in her hands. At the end of her bed her two feet jabbed up into the air. Monoliths.

"No," and then, as an afterthought, "I'm sorry."

She turned her back on the sound of crying. Gaz's fingers itched. She needed another puzzle to fill the void, another project to tide her over, something to yank her focus from the smell of death thick all around.

Press Start for a new game.

And that's really all it was. A game.

Gaz worked hard and played hard for three more hours until she made it home to her kitchen and her Keef.

"How was your day at work?" Keef asked, with barely contained excitement at the sight of her. It was half past one and dark rings of tiredness hung around his eyes, curly hair matted against his head as if he'd fallen asleep somewhere hard and flat.

"Eh," was all she managed out. She took a seat at the table, cheap plastic chair creaking beneath. A carton of rice long cold stood open at the center. Keef was never very good at cleaning up.

She planted her elbows on the table's edge, burying her face in her hands. Exhaustion washed over in a sudden and chilled wave. She felt her back shudder and she would have rather gone through medical school all over again than drag herself the twenty feet to the bedroom.

Across the kitchen she heard a little _scoot_ as Keef moved a chair. She kept her face hidden, wiping wetness into her palms as he sat quietly nearby. The smell of Chinese food and body spray and his weirdly sugary sweat. She'd have to check him for diabetes one of these days.

Quiet, like a sensitive cat, he inched closer and leaned against her. She let him, too tired to shove him away, feeling the warm, sweet-smelling slab of his body snug against her side. Breathing in and out, mechanical, the greatest machine ever built still degrading by inches. And that stupid, sweet heart of his housed precariously inside it all.

She grasped his hand in her damp fingers, ignoring the thrilled and tired light that flashed in his eyes. The pulse of his stupid heart was pounding in his fingertips. She tried very consciously not to count it. Just to let it be. Every other life in the world could be a puzzle, a thing to be measured and analyzed, but not his. Please never his.

He lifted his free hand and wiped a half-formed tear from her cheek with his thumb, muttering a soft little "I'm sorry" in the dim kitchen.

* * *

_The degree to which I like this drabble is very disproportionate to its quality, I think. That is to say, I really really like it but I don't think there's a lot of substance there. Also don't go bother looking for whatever illness that woman has, because I made it out of a conglomerate of symptoms._


	3. Visit (ZaDF)

Dib had broken his ankle during a particularly ill-fated attempt to break into Zim's house. Initially Zim had been thrilled at his enemy's injury, eager to attempt a few more daring plans for world domination while the Dib recovered at home. However, things at school had gone much rougher than he'd anticipated - Zim had no one to argue with, no one to be paired with awkwardly during activities. His walks home became boring, his evenings uninspired without Dib to spur on his focus.

So Zim decided to stop by the Dib-thing's house one day after skool, under the guise of delivering the skoolwork he'd missed. Just to make sure that the filthy human wasn't planning anything.

"What are you doing here?" Dib had asked. He leaned heavily on a crutch rammed up under his left arm in the doorway of his house, eyeing Zim carefully and occasionally flicking his gaze to GIR. The little robot had come along with Zim as backup, but was currently digging in the flowerbed and making daisy chains.

"The foolish instructor-drone commanded that I bring you your homework. He said it was because we are always...'hanging out together.'" Zim sneered, disgusted by the common phrase.

"Oh. Okay." An awkward pause. "Can I have it, please?"

Reaching behind him, Zim unhinged one of the tiny doors on his Pak and let a spidery arm hand the papers to Dib. The human stared nervously at the stacked folder, clinging to his crutch like a weapon.

"Take your stupid homework! Zim has not got all day to hang around your foul domicile!" Zim's Pak leg prodded Dib in the forehead with the folder impatiently.

Dib finally seemed convinced that the papers were non-combustible, and took hold of them with the hand that wasn't holding him up. He looked Zim over, his mouth hitched back. "Why did you do this?"

"What makes you think I _wanted_ to, dirt-head? Because I _didn't_," Zim said, crossing his arms across his chest. For a second or two he stared at Dib, who seemed to be having difficulty making his eyes focus. Likely some kind of pain medication was weakening his mind.

Any beginnings of a plot that Zim's mind was forming were rudely shattered as GIR lifted his head from the flowerbed. Tiny black ears standing upright, GIR bolted toward the door, nearly knocking Dib to his feet.

"I SMELLS THE WAFFLES!" He wailed, stubby arms waving. Zim grabbed the middle of the leash in an attempt to restrain GIR. Raising an eyebrow at them both, Dib tried to bat the little robot away from the door.

"Well, Gaz DID make breakfast for dinner. They're just frozen waffles in the toaster, but I guess if you wanted some..."

"Want some?! We do not consume vile earth food! Especially not at the homes of our enemies!" Zim roared, throwing his arms in the air dramatically. He neglected to account for the shortness of the leash, and accidentally yanked GIR off of his feet. The little robot twirled slowly a few inches off of the ground, thrashing about in midair.

"BUT I WANTS THEM! I WANTS THE DIB-WAFFLES!" He shrieked.

Dib covered an ear with one hand. "Jeez, Zim, let him in if it'll stop that sound."

"Fine. We will partake in your foodstuffs. But I consider this repayment for the delivery of your homework," Zim said shortly, shoving Dib roughly aside as he followed GIR into the house. If nothing else this would give him an opportunity to study the Dib's base for weaknesses. It would be a reconnaissance mission.

True to his word, Dib's sister was in the kitchen, standing on a little stool to reach the counter. Dib stumped in behind them, his cast banging the floor with every step, before collapsing onto a chair as if exhausted. He tossed the homework into the center of the kitchen table.

"What are those freaks doing here?" asked Gaz, her eyes glittering dangerously as she glanced over one shoulder. Zim felt a clench in his squeedlyspootch at her glare, and sat down next to Dib at the table in a subconscious act of submission.

Much to his surprise, GIR seemed to have no instinctive fear of the Dib-sister. He clambered up onto the counter next to her, watching with awe as she dropped four more waffles into the toaster and slammed the lever down.

"Zim brought me my homework. His robot-dog wanted some waffles," Dib said, fumbling with a bottle of pills he'd produced somewhere and counting out a few onto the tabletop. "Vicodin," he added helpfully.

"What is the status of your injury?" Zim asked, eyeing the bleach-white cast locked around Dib's left ankle. He had it jutted out at an odd angle from the table.

"Why do you care?"

"I was merely wondering how many more peaceful days I have to attempt the destruction of your species," said Zim, fiddling with the tips of his gloves.

"Doctor says I've got seven more weeks. So long as I don't have any more accidents." Dib glared deliberately across the table at him, or at least attempted to until the pain medication kicked in and his gaze became considerably more vacant.

"Seven weeks! That can't be right! Even a worm-baby as pathetic as yourself could not possibly take so long to heal! Those foolish human medical drones have no doubt made a mess of the job. Zim will take a look," he yelped, incredulous. He would asphyxiate from boredom if he had to wait seven weeks for Dib to get better.

Muttering about how inappropriate an end _that_ would be for an Invader of his caliber, Zim clicked a panel of his Pak and fetched out the massive binoculars. They had an X-ray setting for just such occasions.

Dib leaned far back in his chair, trying desperately to scoot away across the floor. "Nngh! No! Don't touch it!"

"Stop your whining, earth boy!" said Zim, grabbing the end of Dib's cast and turning it ever so slightly so he could get a better view of the bone. His goggles adjusted themselves fussily and Zim's vision clicked into black and white as he looked for the fracture inside of Dib's leg.

His bones gleamed whitely inside the cast, amidst pale fuzzy muscles and tiny pulsating blood vessels as Zim looked through is X-ray glasses. He was surprised to see that someone had rammed metal in the Dib's ankle to hold things in place while they healed - these humans and their archaic healing methods never ceased to amaze him. Several of the little round bones were jagged at the edges.

"How-how does it look?" Dib asked, with some half-frightened, half-interested tone.

"INFERIOR. These calcium-based support structures will never catch on. NEVER, I TELL YOU!"

"Would both of you SHUT THE HELL UP?!" Gaz roared from the counter, as the last few waffles popped up from the toaster. GIR had evidently not been expecting them, because he threw himself backwards into the sink with a squeak of surprise.

Zim whipped his head up to stare at her and was momentarily horrified to see a skeleton standing at the sink. He awkwardly turned his goggles off and stowed them back into his Pak.

Gaz brought a pile of waffles over to the table, slamming the platter down in the center. Zim watched as she set a plate in front of her brother, already stacked with waffles and syrup.

"Crap. I need a fork." Dib started to rise, crutch sliding on the ground as he tried to balance his weight, before Gaz pushed him back down onto the seat.

"Butt in chair, weirdo. Wouldn't want you to break that stupid face of yours. They might give you an even uglier one," she said, bringing him a couple of utensils to the table. Dib nodded his thanks and started hacking off pieces of waffle with the side of his fork.

Zim stared down at his own plate, puzzling through this insane human interaction. The Gaz was constantly belittling her brother; a standard sign of dominance. But yet she brought him food and tended to his needs. Those were actions for a subservient creature.

Perhaps theirs was a hierarchy distinct to the Dib-family. Zim was already sure that Dib was abnormal in several other ways.

GIR interrupted his brooding. With a dramatic splash, the little robot-dog leapt clear of the sink, grabbing a bottle of dish detergent and zooming over to the table. GIR at least had the decency to separate out a few waffles for himself from the pile before dumping soap all over them like syrup.

"That's revolting," said Gaz, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "And you, alien-boy. You eating?"

Zim looked up in surprise. "Er...I suppose I will consume some of your foods."

The waffles looked fine - not much different than GIR's, really - but Zim still didn't quite trust them. He prodded at his pile with a fork. The Gaz-thing could easily have snuck some vile poisonous chemical into the ones not set aside for Dib. Across from him, ignorant of his judging gaze, Gaz was dumping some yellow fluid over her own waffles out of a freakish, bear-shaped bottle.

"What is THAT? Bears do not produce liquid! Unless...URGH. You humans will eat anything!" Zim gasped in horror, just as Gaz took a bite of the golden-coated waffle. She crinkled her brow.

"It's honey, moron." She slammed the bottle down in front of him.

Reassured by the protection of his gloves, Zim picked up the plastic container. He waved his antennae over the valve at the top, and was immediately hit with a surge of...what was it? Calm? Pleasantness? Warmth? The stuff smelled good, whatever it was. Familiar, somehow.

Zim poured a healthy puddle of honey over his waffle and took a massive bite. The honey stuck to the inside of his mouth and then melted into a sweet, gooey gob on his tongue. He let out a little moaning grunt of satisfaction. This was one earth food he could get used to.

"He's having a reaction to the honey," Dib whispered to his sister, who could not have looked less interested. The boy seemed to have produced a notebook out of nowhere, and was scribbling down notes as his waffles went untouched.

Zim took another bite of his honey-with-waffle, glaring over at Dib. "I am not reacting. Do you think Zim is some chemical to be combined with another? I am simply shocked that humans can concoct such a palatable food."

"Bees make honey, actually. Not humans," Gaz corrected him.

"BEES? THEY ARE OUR GREATEST SHARED NEMESIS! And yet they produce such a delectable byproduct..." Zim pondered this for a second, sucking honey off of one claw. He'd have to remember to send GIR out later for few bottles of the stuff.

"It probably has to do with his insect-like body structure," Dib said absently, writing down more notes.

"I CAN HEAR YOU TALKING ABOUT ME."

"Hey, aliens in MY HOUSE get observed. That's just the way it goes," Dib retorted.

Zim sat back and glared and let himself be observed. He didn't like it. But the honey tasted good and GIR was being quiet for once and at least he knew that Dib was…alive. After a fashion.

They all fell quiet. Only the sound of Gaz's heavy chomping and Dib's scratching pen. Water dripping in the tap. Every once and a while bubbles would drift out of GIR's ears.

He could stand it only for a few minutes.

Zim got to his feet, his chair clattering backwards as he stood. That was enough reconnaissance for one day –

"Where are you going?" Dib asked, his head tilted to one side and his pen hovering threateningly over his notepad.

"Home. I think I've been in your base long enough to accomplish all of my current objectives."

"You're not going to go try and make zombie bacon again, are you?"

"No."

"Okay. I was just making sure. And you've given up on that laser beam that turns people into ferrets, right?"

Zim had nearly forgotten about _that_ scheme. It had gone rather well until the mustelid particles had started acting up. "Yes."

Dib gave a little nod, evidently satisfied. "I guess you can go, then. So long as I know you're not going to try anything too evil until my leg feels better."

"Fool boy. I need no one's permission to exact my brilliant carnage upon-"

"Yeah, yeah, I got it. You're a juggernaut of destruction, whatever. Thanks, Zim, by the way."

"Don't interrupt me!" Zim began, glaring, standing tiptoed.

"I'm not! I'm saying thanks, you freak!"

"Eh? For what?"

Dib sighed heavily, rolling his eyes even as the corner of his mouth twitched. "For bringing me my homework."

"It was the worst assignment I have ever received," Zim snapped, as he walked around the table and gathered up GIR in his arms.

"Well, it was still nice of you to do. For a horrible alien, anyway."

Zim hugged GIR to his chest, feeling the hemolyph-pumping part of his squeedlyspooch thunder against GIR's solid metal back.

"You're not welcome."

"I'll see you in a couple weeks, right?" Dib asked. Zim detected hardly any fearful apprehension in the boy's voice.

"If you _must_."

And he turned his back on Dib and his sister and carried his robot slave out of the house.

A week later Dib called him and asked for his homework again.

Zim brought his own honey this time.

* * *

_Bit more derpy and light-hearted than the last, I think. I promise ya'll I am working on submitted prompts, really and for-seriously, but I thought I should post something, if only to keep me motivated. _

_I was trying to practice casual interactions and Original Flavor style with this. I dunno, just a silly little exercise. These are the sorts of scenes that are the hardest for me to write. _


	4. Nightmares (horror)

_This little one-shot goes out to Zim'sMostLoyalServant, who suggested that I write a one-shot focusing on Gaz's nightmares. The result is a bit on the horror/creepypasta side, so be aware if that sort of thing upsets you._

* * *

Gaz remembered going to bed. She remembered setting her book down on her nightstand as she finished a chapter, turning the corner of her page down to mark her place even though her father had always told her not to. It was just a junky horror novel, after all – one to be read and unnerved by a single time and then discarded. A few dogeared pages were irrelevant.

After that, she'd had her sip of water and run her security check, and after that had come sleep.

Somewhere deep in the house she could hear the quiet mutter of the TV (_Xenomorphs 2_, from the sound of it) and the soft hum of the heater. Gaz curled up on her stomach and rammed her arm up under her pillow and drifted off with her stuffed animals leering down at her from their shelves. Dib claimed insomnia but Gaz had never suffered so. She slept like death, winking out of existence for eight hours every night, not a single dream or groggy half-awake state to stumble through.

So Gaz had slept, in her warm little blanket cocoon.

Until something woke her.

The sound of a low rasping shuttered her into wakefulness. It was so soft that she was surprised that her sleeping self could even register it. It floated in and out of the background sounds of the house and she had to really focus to hear it. She waited for it to abate. Probably something stuck in one of the vents.

The breathy whispering went on. A low and gentle hiss, just loud enough to be impossible to ignore once she heard it. It sounded nearby, now. In her room?

Gaz opened her eyes. She looked over her room, across the cracked door where a thin slat of light leaked through, from one corner to the next. The muted darkness stared back at her, punctuated with shades of her toys and books and shelves as they lay around her bedroom. Everything a little blurry and muggy so late at night, tinged with surreality.

The rasping sound continued. A little louder, if anything.

Annoyance shook any remnant of grogginess from her. What _was_ that? She grimaced in anger at the thought that Dib was running some experiment while she was trying to sleep. The nerve of that kid. Every year he just got more –

Gaz's gaze flicked down to the far corner of her room as she brooded. She thought she'd looked over it just a second ago. Evidentially not.

There was a shadow there now. It had grown from nothingness. A hulking black form huddled in her corner. It shifted ever so slightly and the suddenly paltry light from the hall cast a shine on two massive black and empty eyes hovering in the center of it.

The hissing whisper leaked from the corner.

Something of her brother's, no doubt. He was a magnet for this kind of thing. It must have missed his room.

Gaz went to get out of bed, but found she couldn't move.

Something was sticking her fast. Every bone was locked in place, every joint frozen, leaving her stranded in the center of her bed with her back to the ceiling. Gaz tried to growl her displeasure but felt her throat jam up. A little whining whisper escaped her lips, that was all.

This wasn't right. Even her toes wouldn't wiggle.

Gaz tried to claw and thrash but her body betrayed her and held her still.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the black shape move. It inched closer to her, still without form, still without edges, just a blurry and black-eyed _thing_ slinking across the floor toward her bed. Fear slunk with it, radiating from the creature as it moved, and something cold and stony in the depths of her innards told Gaz that this was a thing to flee from.

Except she couldn't. She struggled against her paralyzed body and felt sweat bead on her clammy skin. Her heart thundered around her chest like a caged bird.

And every second, the thing grew closer.

It scooted out of sight at the edge of her bed. For a second Gaz's insides eased a bit, the knots and twists loosening ever so slightly as its horrifying presence disappeared. She took a deep breath that stretched against her frozen muscles.

Then the black thing popped up over the side of her bed.

She could see the monster clearly now from where it was hunched down around her knee. She could see its clicking needle teeth below the voided eyes. Its grey and festered skin shone with darkness, stretched too tight over tendrilled limbs.

Gaz screamed internally. Every cell in her brain and body shrieked in silent fear and tied-down aggression. Gaz's every instinct was to destroy, fight, smash, rend limb-from-limb. Being helpless drove her mad. It itched at her and plucked every calm and rational thought from the fibers of her being and left only animal horror and rage behind.

Gaz fought against her body and lost.

It moved closer, pulling itself along on bony claws, smooth and centipede-like. Gaz felt its coldness spread over her the closer it came. The chill in the air needled at her lungs. She felt she might be sick.

Closer. Gaz's frozen skin shook all over, her teeth clicking in her skull, shuddering hair into her face. Closer. Her screams for Dib dwindled into a pathetic whimper. Closer. The world outside of her room faded into nothing. Gaz forgot that she had any life or memory of a place beyond the bone-splintering horror of this very second.

It touched her. Its cold and necrotic and slimy body nudged against her leg. It slid along her back, like a long-dead and hairless cat rubbing itself against a master it had always hated. Her spine ran with ice. Her stomach hitched as she tried not to vomit, but the thing ignored her and continued its violation.

Gaz's mind screamed itself hoarse. She felt her thoughts peeling apart into frantic and panicked nonsense. Something wet was streaking down her face.

_Please please please no no no Dib Dad smash rip tear touching cold break paranormal kill kill please no stop _

The thing inched its way up her spine and settled itself in the crook of her neck. She saw its black aura in the edge of her vision that wasn't blurred with angry tears. The little claws pricked her skin.

It breathed cold air in her ear. The quiet raspy hissing sounded loud, louder than anything she'd ever heard, loud as gunshot. So loud it turned her brain inside out as she tried to get away from it. Terror and rage smashed together and roaring in every inch of her thoughts. The thing still there, still pressed against her, the abomination in her bed.

Gaz shuddered herself into oblivion.

She fell. Her organs turned to mercury. Chilled and fluid and thrown. Everything she'd ever thought or felt crammed into an instant, her life in the blink of an eye, frantic and mad, nonsense and yet everything perfectly clear.

Gaz's eyes snapped open and she screamed.

Warm air shot into her lungs as she breathed. Not cold, warm. Warm enough to loosen her tight muscles and she sat straight up in bed and screamed and threw the covers off as she felt blood rocketing around in her fingertips. She moved and flexed her fists and flailed, panicking, looking for the thing, ready to smash and ruin and destroy anything that would dare take her actions from her.

The light in the hallway clicked on and Dib stormed into her room. He smashed at the switches on the wall, half-waving a crowbar as light streamed into Gaz's dark little cave.

Her eyes burned in the sudden brightness but she didn't care. Dib was in her room and she didn't care. Just find it. Just kill it. Gaz leapt out of bed, reveling in her strong and snapping muscles, turning over piles of books and yanking aside clothes as she searched.

"What's the matter, Gaz?!" Dib yelped. He gripped his crowbar with both hands, head whipping back and forth nervously.

"It was just here!" she growled. "Just a second ago! I saw it! It freaking _touched_ me!" She shrieked at him, manic, panting, suddenly desperate for that blob of blackness so she would have something to wreak her vengeance upon.

"What was it? A werewolf? A chupacabra? Maybe I can help you find it…" The crowbar was held more limply in his hands now. Less wary.

"It was this little…black…thing."

"That's real specific, thanks."

Gaz snorted at him, like an animal, so angry she'd almost sock him one just for an outlet. "It had black eyes and cold breath and little claws and it….was…dark…"

Even as she spoke the incident became fuzzy and weird. She remembered it clearly – every instant etched into her brain – but the warm bedroom light and her brother's confused looks were happening in a different dimension.

"I've never heard of anything like that," Dib said, finally, after several awkward seconds. "Are you sure this thing was in your room? Maybe you just saw a shadow-"

She pointed at her bed, nearly hysterical. "I know what I saw, Dib! I'm not some crazy like you who makes things up for attention!" (She saw his posture weaken ever so slightly but continued.) "That _thing_ came in here and it-it…" She choked on her words.

"Are you alright, Gaz? I can get you some water if you-"

"YOU! What could you do?! It was probably one of your stupid rituals or haunted iPods or some shit that drew it here in the first place. The least you could do is help me find it!"

"Gaz, I'm just really not sure…I mean, I haven't gotten any readings for a paranormal entity in the house. And what you're describing doesn't…" he shrunk away from her. Rightly so.

"You don't believe me?! Is that what you're saying?"

"No! No, not that! It's just that if you really think abou-"

"Don't you _dare_, Dib," Gaz growled, glaring up at him through her messy bed-hair, watching as he drew himself totally still. "All the times I've been out with you keeping watch on haunted beef jerky and demon-possessed shoes and Sascrotch and you have the goddamned _nerve_ to say that I'm making this up?"

"But didn't you think about-"

"Don't interrupt me! There was something in here! It made me want to puke, and you better help me find it or else I'll-"

"Just listen, I really think-"

"What, Dib?! What is it you need to say that's so important?!" Gaz's fists were shaking as she tried to hold herself still, the adrenaline of the encounter still running her blood cold and jittery.

Dib gave a little sigh and looked at her with something…like pity? Sadness? His eyes wide and his posture broken. It was a look he'd never dared to give her before.

"Gaz, if something was in your room, wouldn't your security robots have noticed it?" he said, carefully.

Gaz stared at him. A little empty spot opened up in her mind. A dip in her thinking as her brain missed the last step in the staircase and nearly fell.

They would have. No one knew the sensitivity of her security system better than Dib – they clicked into defensive mode when a stray dog wandered into the yard.

Something black and hulking in her mistress's bed should have sent them into a frenzy.

There was silence between the two of them as Gaz rolled this thought slowly over in her mind.

Dib noticed her stillness.

"You might have just had a nightmare. I have them all the time."

"Yeah," she said softly, not looking at him.

"That kind of thing can seem really real when it's going on, but it's just your brain trying to reorganize itself. That's what dad told me, anyway. Sometimes watching scary movies or eating weird stuff late at night can make them worse. It sounded like it really scared you, whatever it was," he rambled, tapping the crowbar in his palm, a bit less shaken now that he'd found some logic to cling to in this strange midnight meeting.

"Maybe so. Whatever. It's gone now," Gaz muttered.

It hadn't felt like any nightmare she'd ever had. Exhaustion started settling back over her as the excitement and fear faded, and Gaz felt apathy slinking in with it. Suddenly she just wanted to sleep. If it had been a nightmare, then at least that godforsaken _thing_ was really gone.

She lamented not getting to rip it in two, however.

Dib broke her thoughts. "Are you going to be alright in here by yourself? If you want I can get a sleeping bag and stay in here with you."

"That's freaking creepy, Dib. We're not little kids anymore. I'll be fine," she crossed her arms over her chest in the international symbol of doneness. Dib never got the hint.

"Are you sure? I just want to make sure that-"

"Goodnight, Dib," she said, taking a step forward and ushering him out of her room. He went begrudgingly, still glancing over his shoulder to check on her as he wandered back to his own bedroom at the end of the hall.

Reluctantly, she climbed back into bed. Something almost like embarrassment was stirring around in the back of her mind for having thrown a fit in the middle of the night over a stupid dream, but Gaz shuttled it into silence. Whatever. Dib would have forgotten by morning. Plus, she was as safe from anything as she could possibly hope in this house.

Gaz huddled herself down into her blankets and clicked her light off. For an instant she nearly shuddered in the darkness, and then thought better of it. Nothing to worry about. Stop being such a baby.

She watched the half-open door as sleep started to settle back over her. Every once and a while she could hear Dib yelping or muttering to herself in the next room and found the noise strangely soothing. Light cut a wide triangle on her floor from the hall, keeping her room from being too totally dark. Normally this would bother her, but just this once, Gaz liked a little illumination.

Until she saw a ball of blackness slip out of the shadows by her door and into the hallway. She watched it slink toward Dib's room and out of sight. So quickly she doubted it had happened at all.

Gaz tried to scream, to launch herself out of bed to check on her stupid brother, but every joint in her body had gone tight and stiff.

* * *

_I've actually had a handful of night terror/sleep paralysis incidents in my life. They're…not fun. I tried to base this at least partially on my personal experiences with this sort of thing. The "monster" is based off of a creature from Warhammer 40k that a friend of mine showed me, though only in appearance. (That whole universe is terrifying as all-get-out.)_

_I also hadn't originally planned on structuring this like a Creepypasta, but that's how it came out. I haven't written any horror stuff since "The Operator" and it felt really, really good to dabble in again. I love writing horror, though I have no idea if I'm any good at it. Next story will be much more cuddly, I promise._

_Anyway, thanks for reading, folks! Let me know if this one creeped you out or just seemed gratuitous. Until next time, loves. _


	5. Between, Away and Replace

_Hey, all. This is actually three drabbles, all in the same continuity. I decided to upload them all together because I'm lazy and also it would be obnoxious to split them up. ZADF stuff isn't 'til the second so I guess you could skip the first one if you REALLY hate Dib/Gretchen or something._

* * *

**"Between"**

_"No. No! Don't come any closer. I swear to God. Don't- DON'T TOUCH HER!" _

_The hands were cold. There was only darkness and she felt his dense, warm shape ripped away from her. Everywhere now – clawing at her skin, groping, nowhere in her mind to hide. She tried to curl in on herself, protect the life inside, but the icy grip rose fear and gooseflesh and held her down. A needle pressed to her stomach, only for the baby to kick against it._

_"Take it out," said a voice. She screamed._

Gretchen had kicked the afghan off onto the floor. She stared wide-eyed around the living room, scarcely seeing a single thing, feeling the grief of the dream press upon her. It was sick and heavy, like an incubus on her chest as she took tiny, panicked breaths.

From the ottoman across the way, two half-moon neon eyes glanced up at her. Beacons in the darkness. Boomer, the pirated SIR unit who Zim had given them as a wedding gift, tilted his metallic head.

"Does ma'am require assistance?" he asked, quiet against the silence of the house.

"No. I'm fine," Gretchen whispered, lied, so soft it was a wonder the thing heard her. Any louder noise and she felt sure she'd snap in half. Boomer curled back up into a little ball, eyes dimming to grey.

The details of the dream had begun to fade, tension and foreboding drifting out to the edges of her mind and camping there, silent. She unfolded herself from the armchair, touching her bare feet against the rough carpet. Across her swollen stomach was a book with a broken spine. Some guilty-pleasure historic romance novel. Dib had brought it to her before he went to bed, along with a chunk of dark chocolate and the blanket now twisted across the floor. He'd made a laughing comment about the weird cravings of pregnant women; it was a statement so dry and tart and clichéd that she'd been surprised to hear it from his unconventional mouth.

Gretchen levered herself to her feet. She braced herself against the side table, wobbly from the yet-unsettled fear and the weight of the baby that she hadn't quite gotten used to. Wrapping her arms around herself, around the tiny love-grown spark that warmed her belly, she walked down the hall and creaked open the bedroom door. Dib had left it a few inches ajar.

"Nngmf. I wondered when you'd come to bed," he mumbled, scrabbling the blankets down so she could climb into bed beside him.

"I had a bad dream." Gretchen was glad that he was half-asleep the instant that the words left her mouth. How childish. How insignificant.

"M'sorry."

Eyes half-closed, he reached out and pulled her to him. He rested his chin on the crown of her head and spread his hands across her back, safe and complete. The darkness at the edge of her mind snarled bitterly and departed, leaving a tired peace behind. She pressed against his chest and buried her face in the book-scented crook of his neck.

The little heart beat between them.

* * *

**"Away"**

Dib stepped out into the backyard, hearing the yelping of children and robots fade behind him as he slid the glass door shut. It would be their bedtime soon. Light from the kitchen was enough to cast a warm glow across the patio scattered with building blocks, the flowerbed full of misplaced toy trucks, and the telescope in the corner of the lawn which had been carefully roped off with yellow tape. "This is Daddy's," Gretchen had explained to Amelia, their youngest troublemaker, "you can only use it when he's with you, okay?"

He got maybe a minute or two of quiet staring up at the stars, no telescope, just his own weak eyes gazing desperately for a purple flicker or shooting star. Just in case. You never knew.

"Oh, there you are. Is something wrong? Did you hear something out here?" The hiss-click of the sliding door made him turn as Gretchen tottered out into the yard. She took worried little steps, barely balanced from the weight of their third heavy inside her. Gretchen wasn't a big girl and Nick and Amelia had almost taken her over by the eight month.

One of her bare feet caught on a discarded plastic water gun. Dib felt the throat-to-kidney plunge as she started to fall and he quickly wrapped her up and held her steady.

"Are you okay?"

"I think."

He gave her a little hug – a little reminder she was there – and felt the baby kick against his arm.

"Jack's okay," she said, flickering a smile.

"Or Catherine," he added.

From the house behind them there came the thump of a child leaping off a piece of furniture, followed by an excited squeal and Boomer the SIR's familiar "Tiny master, that isn't safe!"

"We should check on them." Gretchen started to move away, uncurling her fluid softness from him.

"They'll be okay for a minute. Nick's almost nine, and Boomer's a good babysitter," he said. "The stars are really something tonight."

This she couldn't deny him. They were bright, bold, stripped bare without the moon to cloud their clear quicksilver glimmer on the inky sky. He felt her settle against his chest, butting her head up under his chin as she looked up at the stars with him.

"Have you heard anything from Zim?" she asked, delicately.

"No. Not for a few months." A pause. "He promised he'd make it back before the baby came due."

"I've still got at least two weeks. Maybe three. You can cover a lot of space in that time."

"I guess."

"He'll show up. I know you miss him."

"I don't miss him," he said, too quickly, too defensively, enough to make her raise her eyebrows at him in a skeptical backward glance.

"Sure. Of course. How silly of me." She was still smiling ever so slightly as she unwound herself from his grasp, giving his hand a gentle squeeze as she headed back into the house. "Let me know if you see anything, okay?"

"Okay."

"Don't stay out here too long. It's going to get cold."

"I won't."

"Sweetheart?"

"Hm?"

"I bet he misses you even more. It's got to get lonely up there with just that crazy robot of his. He'll be back. He always comes back."

Dib stared after her, until long after she'd disappeared into the kitchen and into a herd of little beings. He flicked his gaze back to the sky (still no sign of a purple comet), and then very slowly made his way back into the house.

* * *

**"Replace"**

Zim did not like Dib's house. He'd had the audacity to move after getting (what was it that humans called it? When they mated for life and had tiny versions of themselves?) _married_ was the word, he thought. Dib and his forevermate had moved into a different house completely across town from the neighborhood where they'd fought as children.

Or, rather, where Dib had fought with him as a child. Dib was no child any longer. He was nearly Tallest-height, with tiny square glasses instead of those huge round ones he used to wear, and a whole brood of offspring.

Dib was looking at Zim even now through those too-small glasses. The human crossed his long legs on the ottoman in front of his armchair, nudging Boomer the proper SIR unit out of the way with the tips of his black tennis shoes.

Tennis shoes. Not even boots.

Zim reared his lip back into a snarl, ignoring the way that Dib furrowed his eyebrows down at him.

"You okay, man?"

"I am fine. Better than fine. At least I have not weighed myself down with all this biological luggage!" Zim spat, tossing his head in the direction of one of the family portraits framed on the wall of the living room. It showed Dib and the purple-haired girl and their three kittens, all giggling moronically in some garden.

Even now Zim could hear the lot of them, giggling and yelping from somewhere else in the house. Playing with GIR, which both Zim and Dib disapproved of.

"Right. I forgot that you only have robotic luggage," Dib said. "Do me a favor and keep GIR out of the toilets, at least, will you?"

"As long as you keep your smeets from putting awful ideas in his head! Last time we were here, the female taught him how to _belch the human alphabet_."

Dib chuckled. "Yeah, Amelia's pretty good at that sort of thing. Oh, that reminds me. You wanted to see Jack, right?"

"Jack?"

"The baby," Dib said, getting to his feet before Zim could insist that no, he had no desire to see some stinking sniveling smeet of Dib's.

Sure, Dib's children were more tolerable than most, but they were still – Zim grimaced at the thought – _babies_. He'd learned that they could never be trusted, no matter how benign or old or how closely related to his earthbound acquaintance.

Barely that anymore. Barely even his enemy. Dib and he were practically _friends_. Ugh. That was an even more offensive thought than the one about the babies.

Zim barely noticed when Dib re-entered the living room, toting a little bundle in his arms and with his mate looking worriedly over his shoulder as she followed close at his heels. He was busy brooding right up until Dib shoved the baby practically under his nose.

Instinctively Zim grabbed it, holding the warm, milk-smelling lump close to him.

"Watch his head," Dib fussed.

"I have held a stinking human _baby_ before. I am aware of their PATHETIC NECK MUSCLES."

The baby giggled when he yelled. Zim glared down at the pink thing, round-faced and brown-eyed, with stubby useless hands sticking out of his sickly-blue blanket.

"Are you really sure he should-?" Zim heard Gretchen say softly to her husband, while he feigned interest in the infant.

"Sure I am. Zim's got it."

And then, in the middle of what would have inevitably been a long, gushing string of compliments in Zim's favor, there was a crashing and series of screams from one of the other rooms. Zim's back went completely rigid and he hugged the child to his chest.

"Nick you BROKE IT!" came a little girl's yelp.

"That was GIR!"

"Here I am!" squeaked Zim's own SIR unit from another room, followed by what sounded like a blowtorch igniting.

Dib gave an audible sigh at all this commotion, rubbing the back of his neck, even as Gretchen bolted from the room to attend to her litter.

"Hey, I'll just be a minute. Let me go make sure none of the kids broke any bones. You got Jack?" Dib asked, already turning away. Zim opened his mouth to argue but found that Dib had already left the two of them alone.

"Some paternal unit you've got," Zim spat, glaring down at the child. "he's only got three smeets and can hardly keep them in line. When _I_ was in the armada-"

The baby hiccupped. He reached a chubby hand up toward Zim's wig.

"Not for smeets," and Zim did his best to keep the child at arm's length until Dib returned.

Zim had to admit, this one looked the most like his arch-frienemy. The little tuft of black hair, the muddy eyes, already intent in their focus; this child was the rightful heir to Dib. Zim sensed it.

Smaller and worse things, that's what Dib had gotten himself into. Maybe one day this child here would search the stars and start fights with aliens.

Zim thought he would like that.

The sound of stomping was growing louder from somewhere in the house, and just as Zim looked up from the little JackDib, the tall and lumbering human stalked back into the room.

"Are any of your smeets damaged?"

"Huh? No, they're fine. Gretchen wants to keep an eye on them for a while, though. You and Jack getting along?" Dib asked, throwing himself onto the chair he'd occupied before.

"You will die one day, Dib-stink," Zim said.

Dib stood up straight in his chair, fingers tightening against the armrests, his gaze flickering protectively between his child and his alien. "Well fuck you too, Zim."

"Eh? No. I'm not going to MURDER you. That would hardly be worth my time, at this point. I merely mean that one day you'll need a replacement," Zim tried to speak as evenly as he could, but was still frustrated when Dib got to his feet and took the child back from him. Zim's fingers tingled with the bundle of warmth gone.

"You don't replace people, Zim."

"Then what am I supposed to do when you're rotting?!" Zim snapped, suddenly angry, suddenly jealous over these inconvenient trips to earth and the laughing of children and GIR in the hallway and the snarky tenor Dib-voice and the company of the only ape in the entirety of the universe who's company he could tolerate.

Dib looked at him from across the living room. His dark eyes burned as he held his smeet close, letting the child wrap a tiny hand around his finger, silent and thoughtful for what felt like a long time.

"You're going to have to start looking after my family instead of me, I guess."

* * *

_Haha see I told you it would be snugglier than the last one. Pregnant-with-Dib's-baby Gretchen is a bit too cute for me to handle. No idea what's next in line after this, though. Make suggestions if you want I guess!? Otherwise, peace out, loves. Any reviews are always appreciated but just knowing ya'll are out there and reading is plenty warm-fuzzies for me. _


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